Can you explain what you mean by that?
The gods splashed in the primordial or cosmic pools. Wherever the waves meet the planets were formed. Afterward, they were mortified at their mistake
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Why is God worth worshiping?
- Thread starter FlyingTeaPot
- Start date
The gods splashed in the primordial or cosmic pools. Wherever the waves meet the planets were formed. Afterward, they were mortified at their mistake
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Thanks...
Wow! I did not know that was a Hindu belief. that sure is a lot different from the Jewish or Christian belief based upon:
Genesis 1:31 “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”
dfnj
Well-Known Member
You are absolutely right. There is "no reason". So having faith is a "choice" not a "decision" based on reason. You seem like someone how wants to make a decision about religion based on reason. That is not how faith works.
Here's the argument why to believe in such things. On cosmic timescale,everything we do in our lives in meaningless. But it is also meaningless that it is meaningless. So we might was well choose meaningful because what difference does it make. Religion provides us a context within which to live a meaningful life. Sure it's all based on irrational made up stuff. But who cares if everything is meaningless anyway on cosmic timescale. At least with the context of religion we get to have subjective experiences of what is sacred and what is divine. All you get with evidence based beliefs is patterns of energy and mass swirling around with no pattern having any more meaning or significance than any other pattern.
Religion is a like very fine piece of artwork but it has to do with language and your subjective experience.
dfnj
Well-Known Member
I agree God has no needs. But we will have to just disagree on the idea that God wants us to worship Him. I think God is indifferent to our behaviors. Based on human experiments there is no amount of evil God will not tolerate in order to preserve our free-will. God is clearly pro-choice. As far as I can tell choosing to worship God or not to worship God makes no difference. How we treat each other is much more important than how we treat God.
I just don't like the negative connotations associated with the word "worship" because its suggests monarchy and authoritarianism is the preferred government of God. Surely an omnipotent God who is self-sufficient has no need to be a monarch or be a Lord over subjects. It just makes no sense at all. An omnipotent God would be well beyond anything having to do with monarchy. In my mind an omnipotent God can only be represented with words having really nothing to do with the day-to-day activities of man. Especially something so mundane as government.
This does not mean I do not think it is important to have reverence for God. Some people think the way to have reverence is by saying certain magic words while worshiping God. I think the way to have reverence is by having reverence for God's creation. The way I express my reverence is by treating everyone I meet as the most sacred object on Earth. Even when I meet Muslims and atheists I treat them as if they are the most sacred object on Earth because of my reverence for God.
But I have people tell me I am in league with Satan because I will not accept their religious dogma as being the only true path to God. Or I am in league with Satan because I do not hold the Bible as the highest authority when it comes to topics of religion.
And what is amazing to me is these same people are okay with all the bombs the US is dropping in the ME. The US dropped 22,000 bombs on five predominately Muslim countries in 2015, 28,000 in 2016, and over 30,000 in 2017. 2018 will be a new record. Some estimates claim up to two million Arabs have been killed since 9/11 by US bombings. It disturbs me to the core of my being these bombings are being done. Yet because I will not say magic words about Jesus or worshiping God a certain way I am in league with Satan.
Look at the guy in this article. He is your next terrorist:
More than 200 civilians killed in suspected U.S. airstrike in Iraq
It seems to me the way the Bible is today, the way people believe and worship God, and the way they criticize others and dub them as evil is very telling. The people who are most obsessed with morality turn out to be the most immoral. Evil is always where you least expect it. Any system of thought where the advocates of the system are morally okay with killing of two million brown people has got to be evil at its root.
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Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I guess you are saying that if God did not preserve free will but rather overrode free will then there would be no evil in the world? How exactly would that play out in the real world?
I agree that choosing to worship God or not to worship God makes no difference to God because God is self-sufficient and has no need for our worship. I also agree that how we treat each other is what is most important, but according to my beliefs if we love God we will love others because we will see the attributes of God reflected in others. We will then love others for those attributes rather than for our own selfish reasons. I try to do that out of principle even though my feelings towards God are often less than optimum given I have my own issues with God and suffering.
I really do not know how to love God anyhow but I believe it is to my best advantage and so I will keep trying to figure it out. I fully agree. I do not associate worshiping God with what you suggested it might mean. Actually, I think it just means to love God, but I do not know exactly what that means either. Other Baha’is seem to understand it but I am not one to fit the religious mold. As such, I have issues with some of the prayers and observances but I just do the best I can. I am still learning since I only came back to this religion about five years ago, having been in hibernation for decades owing to my dislike or organized religion and my less than ideal attitude towards God. Bottom line is that I just want to do the right thing, not mostly for myself but for others, since I am just a tiny dewdrop in the ocean.
I fully agree that God cannot be associated with anything as mundane as a government or the day-to-day activities of man. However, I believe God has His Finger on the pulse of humanity and He knows our every thought and feeling.
What you just said is the “essence” of what it means to be a Baha’i, and one does not have to join the religion to BE a Baha’i in spirit.
“When asked on one occasion: “What is a Bahá’í?” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá replied: “To be a Bahá’í simply means to love all the world; to love humanity and try to serve it; to work for universal peace and universal brotherhood.” On another occasion He defined a Bahá’í as “one endowed with all the perfections of man in activity.” In one of His London talks He said that a man may be a Bahá’í even if He has never heard the name of Bahá’u’lláh. He added:—
The man who lives the life according to the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh is already a Bahá’í. On the other hand, a man may call himself a Bahá’í for fifty years, and if he does not live the life he is not a Bahá’í. An ugly man may call himself handsome, but he deceives no one, and a black man may call himself white, yet he deceives no one, not even himself.” Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, pp. 71-72
It is the Christian doctrines that are the problem, and they do not correlate with what Jesus ever said. As a Baha’i, I have a lot of Christians telling me I am going to hell, even though I believe in Jesus. I just tell them to read what Jesus said about judging others. That correlates with what Baha’u’llah wrote, since they are one Spirit and the same Person:
Matthew 7:1-5 “Do not judge, or you will be judged. For with the same judgment you pronounce, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while there is still a beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
26: O SON OF BEING! How couldst thou forget thine own faults and busy thyself with the faults of others? Whoso doeth this is accursed of Me.
5: O SON OF DUST! Verily I say unto thee: Of all men the most negligent is he that disputeth idly and seeketh to advance himself over his brother. Say, O brethren! Let deeds, not words, be your adorning.
The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh
I'll grant you that somebody claiming that they speak for a god makes the likelihood of that god existing slightly greater, and thus can be regarded as evidence. The proper way to express that would be that the existing evidence isn't good enough to justify belief, not that there is no evidence for a god.
Might exist isn't enough. Mere possibility is not interesting. What is interesting is what is actual. Possibility only has relevance with respect to the possible having been, being and/or becoming the actual.
Keep in mind that there are two different meanings of possible. One refers to the things that it is know can come to pass, like an asteroid striking the earth, or winning the lottery.
The other refers to those things not yet known to be impossible, but actually are. Gods may well fit into that category. We have no concept of how something can be omniscient or omnipotent, nor how such a thing could come to exist undesigned and uncreated, nor how such a thing could maintain its structural integrity or retain its memories, or create universes, or interact with them while remaining undetectable. We may someday discover that incorporeal mind is impossible.
There is infinitely more that is possible than actual, so perforce, most of it must be ignored. Russell's teapot may be orbiting the sun between the earth and mars. It's possible, but I'm sure that neither of us cares.
Possible things take on more significant when they can account for an aspect of observed reality better than what is known to be true. That's what makes the multiverse hypothesis interesting. It would solve the so-called fine tuning problem, or why the universe has the characteristics that make it stable for matter, life, and mind to arise in it.
That is also what makes the god hypothesis more interesting than say a vampire or leprechaun hypothesis. They may all be figments of our imaginations, but only the god hypothesis attempts to account for an aspect of observed reality. It's the only other idea we have for why the universe appears finely tuned.
But for now, we have to remain agnostic on the matter and concede the possibility.
Still, there is insufficient support for belief.
I imagine that something which is really impossible can never actually be proved because of the Time Problem.
Did you mean possible? Someday it might be discovered that incorporeal mind is possible.
Haha... pardon, let me clarify as I may have been a bit unclear. When people say "God" in proper case that specifically means the one-god of the Abrahamic religions. I don't worship that god. I'm not technically precluded from doing so as a polytheist, but that god-concept doesn't inspire me.
To be fair to those who are devoted to that god, though, some of the religions that were created around that god focus a lot on creed and not much on deed. In those cases, actual worship and the practice of what I called "armchair theism" is accepted and normal. I think that's a weird approach, but I guess it works for them somehow? There's probably reasons, but I'm not going to pretend to speak for them.
Life itself is irrelevant at both extremes of scale. There is no sign of it when looking at a galaxy or an atom, and if we existed at that scale, our surroundings would indeed be empty, lifeless, and meaningless.
But that's not the scale we life at. We exist as objects bigger than a pebble but smaller than a boulder, on the surface of a single planet most of which we never experience, and for a few decades at most. At that scale, we can find much meaning.
Maybe, but it's not necessary, and in my opinion, leads a less authentic existence.
It's not so difficult to accept the very real possibility that we may be all there is for light years, that we are not watched over or protected, that nobody hears our prayers, that we are mortal and may return to the nonexistent state from which we arose, that we are insignificant everywhere but on earth, that we are unloved except by a handful of creatures on one planet.
As far as we know, that's how it is, and it is not difficult to accept if one grows up with such an understanding. What is nearly impossible, it seems, is to grow up with a religious worldview that prevents those ideas from arising and maturing, and then trying to cope without religious beliefs, which is why I would encourage a young person to shed religion, but not somebody in the last third of life.
That is incorrect.
For starters, my inner life is not limited to beliefs. I also have feelings, often quite spiritual in nature. The knowledgeable and spiritual atheist looks up at the night sky and considers the flickering drop of starlight impinging upon his retina. He understands that this experience connects him to a monstrous ball of hydrogen that is unfathomly hot, massive, and distant, which star may be gone now, even though its light continues to come to earth and the eyes on it for years more, and he gets weak in the knees at the thought.
He understands that the death of such stars was necessary for it to send its ashes light years away into the nebula that became our solar system, infusing it with the heavy elements that comprise our planet and ourselves, and a frisson passes down his spine in the moment. He feels a deep connectedness to all of reality, and with it, a sense of mystery, awe, and gratitude for being permitted to participate in it even if only for the blink of an eye.
How can fictitious beliefs improve on that?
Why do you believe that? Why do you think you know what I experience or can experience?
When I read what the theists on these threads are thinking about and trying to find, I see nothing that I haven't already found without a god belief. I see that many don't seem to understand what is possible from an atheistic perspective. Like you, they tell me what I am constrained to experience without a religious perspective. They tell me that my life can have no meaning or significance, not any basis for morality, and that I am forced to view the world as nothing but meaningless, swirling patterns of energy and mass, for example.
They also don't seem to understand how somebody like me views and uses reason. It's not a end in itself. It's a means to an end, and that end is to order the irrational passions and feelings such that the good ones are maximized and the unpleasant ones minimized. I use reason to master the irrational life. That's where meaning comes from, not reason. That's where happiness and satisfaction comes from, not reason.
Reason is the rider, and the passions the horse. Without the reins of the rider, the horse goes out of control and likely bucks him off.
But throw reason out and substitute faith, and you have lost control of the reins. You are prone to believe false things, which, if they affect your life, can degrade it. I believe that I've mentioned that the worst mistake I have made in this life was made because of a faith based belief, one contradicted by reason applied to the available evidence. Many bad feelings (emotional turmoil) followed.
RedDragon94
Love everyone, meditate often
Thanks.
We are in agreement there. To me, the word also implies groveling and self-negation in the worst sense - a sense of unworthiness and worthlessness. I grew up in 20th century America, where I was taught to believe that the individual has worth. I learned to respect self-empowerment, autonomy, self-actualization - ideas antithetical to the teachings of the dominant religion around me. My view is more compatible with the idea of the individual as the citizen, theirs more compatible with a conception of the individual as subject.
The subject worships the king. He hangs his head, perhaps kneels or kisses a ring, and then praises the king - your majesty. Americanism rejects all of that, and so do I.
Good. And that can be done without any concept of a god.
In fact, with the commonest conception of a god, the opposite can happen. How many people are living life thinking that the universe is rightly slated for destruction by apocalypse, that the world is a hideous place, that man is a failed species made of base flesh, and life should be lived with attention diverted away from our world toward an imagined time and place like somebody sitting at a cosmic bus stop waiting to be taken away from underappreciated life.
Beautifully, I imagine.
If I could have programmed my children to will only for what is good, honorable, and wholesome - perhaps by turning a dial and setting their preferences to integrity, honesty, kindness, etc., that's what I would have done as would any loving parent that wanted the best for their children. Their free will was an obstacle that I had to contend with as I attempted to conform it to my specifications without the benefit of the dials - do not hit your sister, do not lie, do not steal.
Christianity has an odd take on free will. It gives lip service to it being a gift from God even as it instructs one to suppress it and be obedient to God's will instead, and warns us of the great price to be paid by not so doing.
That's honorable. You can and should do that, and not because you see yourself as insignificant, but for the opposite reason. You do it because you can and it gives you satisfaction.
Religion is not necessary. In fact, once again, I see the dominant religion in the West undermining that. How can you do the right thing for others if you are really doing it for yourself under the belief that you are being watched and judged. Whatever you do, you are doing for reward or to escape punishment.
I referred to the authentic existence in an earlier post. A theist that believes as I just described can never know the ineffable joy of doing good for goodness sake, with no expectation that anyone will ever know what good he did or that he will be rewarded for it beyond the satisfaction his conscience spills out for him for doing the right thing.
I used to live in rural America. I would often have occasion to pull over on an otherwise empty rural road to save a turtle crossing knowing that nobody would ever know or care except me. Because there was nobody else there in that corner of the universe to take responsibility for this life, I did.
That's as close to a godlike experience as you can get. It's not the same if a cosmic eye in the sky is always watching, judging, and tallying reward and punishment. You can't grow up if the baby sitter never leaves, or if the cop is always in the rear view mirror.
We may also discover that incorporeal mind is not only possible, but actual.
But I meant it as written.
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Trailblazer
Veteran Member
In my religion, the focus is on deeds, not on creeds:
“The essence of faith is fewness of words and abundance of deeds; he whose words exceed his deeds, know verily his death is better than his life.” Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 156
It is really not the easiest religion to belong to, no sitting around in the armchair.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
The existing evidence isn't good enough to justify belief for some people, but it is enough evidence to justify belief for other people.
To me and others who believe like me it is not possible, it is actual. The fact that it cannot be proven as a fact does not enter into the equation. There are ways of knowing that do not require proof. That is why not everyone knows the same thing, since it is not a fact.
Humans cannot know things about a God that is far above them. God is the uncreated. How could the created understand the Creator? Can a painting understand the painter? Just because we have no concept of such a thing does not means it can't or does not exist. No human can encompass a being that is infinite because we are finite. That makes logical sense.
True, these things cannot be proven so people who need proof will have to remain agnostic, a respectable position.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Trailblazer said: I guess you are saying that if God did not preserve free will but rather overrode free will then there would be no evil in the world? How exactly would that play out in the real world?
It Aint Necessarily So said: Beautifully, I imagine.
What is so beautiful about a perfect world? This material world was never designed to be perfect. The purpose of physical reality is to acquire perfections by making choices and learning from those choices.
If I could have programmed my children to will only for what is good, honorable, and wholesome - perhaps by turning a dial and setting their preferences to integrity, honesty, kindness, etc., that's what I would have done as would any loving parent that wanted the best for their children. Their free will was an obstacle that I had to contend with as I attempted to conform it to my specifications without the benefit of the dials - do not hit your sister, do not lie, do not steal.
Free will presents obstacles to others who do not like our choices but without free will the world would come to a standstill. Moreover, with no obstacles we have no challenges and no learning.
There is only one alternative to exercising our own free will, being controlled by someone or something else.
If people were programmed by God to be good they would simply be puppets on God’s string, programmed robots; likewise with your children. Humans need to make choices in order to learn lessons. If someone does that for them how can they ever learn anything? The reality is that we are not born with the character; we have to acquire that by living life. If there is nothing to learn in this world why are we even here?
Trailblazer said: Bottom line is that I just want to do the right thing, not mostly for myself but for others, since I am just a tiny dewdrop in the ocean.
It Aint Necessarily So said: That's honorable. You can and should do that, and not because you see yourself as insignificant, but for the opposite reason. You do it because you can and it gives you satisfaction.
I do it because I believe it is the right thing to do. A by-product of that is that I am satisfied that I made the choice to do the right thing.
Religion is not necessary. In fact, once again, I see the dominant religion in the West undermining that. How can you do the right thing for others if you are really doing it for yourself under the belief that you are being watched and judged. Whatever you do, you are doing for reward or to escape punishment.
That is not according to my religion. I am not a Christian. We do it not out of fear but rather out of love, and because it is the right thing to do.
I referred to the authentic existence in an earlier post. A theist that believes as I just described can never know the ineffable joy of doing good for goodness sake, with no expectation that anyone will ever know what good he did or that he will be rewarded for it beyond the satisfaction his conscience spills out for him for doing the right thing.
If God exists, God exists. The fact that God is watching over us does not have to be the reason we do the right thing, unless we are doing it out of fear of punishment or hope of reward. God does not punish or reward us for what we do, we do that to ourselves, whether we believe in God or not.
It Aint Necessarily So said: Beautifully, I imagine.
What is so beautiful about a perfect world? This material world was never designed to be perfect. The purpose of physical reality is to acquire perfections by making choices and learning from those choices.
If I could have programmed my children to will only for what is good, honorable, and wholesome - perhaps by turning a dial and setting their preferences to integrity, honesty, kindness, etc., that's what I would have done as would any loving parent that wanted the best for their children. Their free will was an obstacle that I had to contend with as I attempted to conform it to my specifications without the benefit of the dials - do not hit your sister, do not lie, do not steal.
Free will presents obstacles to others who do not like our choices but without free will the world would come to a standstill. Moreover, with no obstacles we have no challenges and no learning.
There is only one alternative to exercising our own free will, being controlled by someone or something else.
If people were programmed by God to be good they would simply be puppets on God’s string, programmed robots; likewise with your children. Humans need to make choices in order to learn lessons. If someone does that for them how can they ever learn anything? The reality is that we are not born with the character; we have to acquire that by living life. If there is nothing to learn in this world why are we even here?
Trailblazer said: Bottom line is that I just want to do the right thing, not mostly for myself but for others, since I am just a tiny dewdrop in the ocean.
It Aint Necessarily So said: That's honorable. You can and should do that, and not because you see yourself as insignificant, but for the opposite reason. You do it because you can and it gives you satisfaction.
I do it because I believe it is the right thing to do. A by-product of that is that I am satisfied that I made the choice to do the right thing.
Religion is not necessary. In fact, once again, I see the dominant religion in the West undermining that. How can you do the right thing for others if you are really doing it for yourself under the belief that you are being watched and judged. Whatever you do, you are doing for reward or to escape punishment.
That is not according to my religion. I am not a Christian. We do it not out of fear but rather out of love, and because it is the right thing to do.
I referred to the authentic existence in an earlier post. A theist that believes as I just described can never know the ineffable joy of doing good for goodness sake, with no expectation that anyone will ever know what good he did or that he will be rewarded for it beyond the satisfaction his conscience spills out for him for doing the right thing.
If God exists, God exists. The fact that God is watching over us does not have to be the reason we do the right thing, unless we are doing it out of fear of punishment or hope of reward. God does not punish or reward us for what we do, we do that to ourselves, whether we believe in God or not.
Mohsen
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
Why?
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
The Christian God died a horrible death on the cross to save us from our sin, guilt and shame. I think that is the best possible reason for worship.
FlyingTeaPot
Irrational Rationalist. Educated Fool.
Because that is the intention of this thread. You can choose to ignore it, but then we are not talking about the same thing anymore.
FlyingTeaPot
Irrational Rationalist. Educated Fool.
Okay then, thank you
Mohsen
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
Seems my first answer was not good enough for you. I was asking you why it wasn't. I know the purpose of this thread and have already answered. And i'm under no compulsion to elaborate when I already believe I did a good job of explaining my reasons
peace
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
In terms of you understanding..
How do you feel about your parents, for what they gave you? a little gratitude is usually not misplaced!